Feline Retouching

[paulette conlan]

My neighbor has this new kitten that I've been snapping pictures of with my digital camera. Anyway I'm wondering what to do about the pet's( cat is still nameless but responds to " Here Cat") glowing eyes- a problem which I have in alot of the pictures. I want to have some life in the eyes but I can't figure out how to get it right. Also, the picture in the upper corner which was taken in a daylight situation is the real color of her fur. Is there anyway I can get the other fur to look that way without cloning. Thanks alot for any help. Know that I'll be taking many pictures of this cute feline.
Paulette

[Doug Nelson]

The eye thing is a variant of the red-eye problem (at least a couple of threads here about that). I'd try the sponge tool to make them b/w, then invert. I haven't actually tried that, but it sounds right You might need to do a bit of burning-in afterwards. You might actually be able to use the burn tool instead of inverting.

As for the fur...I prefer the black fur look But you should be able to use your favorite selection technique to select only the black fur, then go to Adjust>Hue/Saturation and make it any color you'd like. You can also pick up the color from the accurate fur, fill a new layer with that color, use "Color" blend mode, and erase what you don't want colored. A separate adjustment layer might be needed for the fur, since the sunlight pic has the fur as being much lighter. However you do it, it sounds like you'll need an accurate mask of the fur.

[paulette conlan]

Doug
Thanks for the suggestions. Will try them out later today.
Paulette

[Sharon Brunson]

Paulette, if you had any courage you would ask how to remove red eye from a cat on the Photoshop form.

[Ed_L]

Okay, I don't mind looking like a dummy. Doesn't a cat get red-eye? Does it always appear to be a specular highlight? The reason I'm asking is that the reason for red-eye is that the blood behind the iris shows through. It is less likely to happen if the light source is not close to the lens, or if the iris is (can't think of the word) the opposite of dialated.

Ed

[ItzRandy]

Ed, I believe the word you were looking for is Constricted! Now that I have wowed myself with that I'll take a shot at the red-eye thingy.

As I have heard it explained before, the common cat has eyes that are constructed of a different lens structure than our own. They actually become have some sort of luminosity to them that allows them to have the enhanced night vision. This is supposedly the reason that when you hit the cat with a sudden dramatic change in light source, the light is, for lack of a better explanation, reflected back to you.

Next I'll find out that Ed is actually a vetrenarian and laughing hysterically at my feeble attempt to explain this one away.

[Ed_L]

That's the word Randy. Thanks. Now that I think of it, a cat's pupils are not round as ours are. Never really thought about it before. Oh yeah, I'm *not* a vet.

Ed

[paulette conlan]

Wouldn't touch going on the Adobe forum with a 10 foot pole on this one ! We're a kinder,gentler site here.

One thing that I observed is that while humans and canines get "red-eye', felines seem to get "green-eye".I was looking at some cat pictures and noticed that their pupil appears to be almost elliptically vertical at times.

Anyway, I fixed the eyes by destaurating , coloring the iris and adding highlights. Wound up just adding highlights to the fur( the same technique that Eismann uses to highlight hair). When I did the mask on the fur to alter the color I decided I liked the original better. The fur looked too washed out.

Thanks everyone.
PC

[Doug Nelson]

Works for me. Cute kitty.

[Tim_S]

Green eyes

Oh!, Oh!, I know that!! My biology degree is finally going to come in handy...

Cats, dogs and several other animals that are active at night have a reflective layer on the back of their eye. That gives the light passing over the light sensitive cones (the light receptors) two chances to trigger a response. Once as it comes in from the front, and once again as it is reflected back out. This can make animal eyes appear luminous since they are reflecting back such a high percentage of the light we are using to see them...

Humans don't have that reflective layer, so when we look in to a flash the light reflects off all the blood vessels in the back of the eye, so we have "redeye".

[CJ Swartz]

See, Tim -- education IS important! You never know when you'll need the answer to a biological/chemical/literary/artistic/philosophical/historical/legal/mathmatical question relating to an image that needs retouching/restoring. I think each area has been touched at least once in these forums, and it's impressive to see the wealth of knowledge in our group.